[A-List] Whither the war on drugs?

[Keaney Michael]

US aid goes ahead despite failure to curb poppy crop 

IAN BRUCE
The Herald, 27 February 2002 

      THE United States has removed Afghanistan
      from its proscribed list of major drug-producing
      countries despite the fact that the UN says this
      year's poppy harvest is likely to produce more
      than 3000 tonnes of raw opium, the basic
      ingredient of heroin.

      President George W Bush admitted to
      Congress that the country had "failed
      demonstrably to make substantial
      counter-narcotics efforts over the last 12
      months", but waived a ban on economic
      assistance because it was "vital to the national
      interests of the US", to bolster the fledgling
      regime in Kabul.

      A plan is now being put together to offer Afghan
      farmers cash compensation to plough the
      bumper crop under before the traditional harvest
      in May. US law forbids direct purchase of the
      heroin base product.

      Efforts are also to be made to offer law
      enforcement help to countries bordering
      Afghanistan to try to stem the flow of the drug via
      Pakistan, Iran and central Asia to the West.

      Rand Beers, the US assistant secretary of state
      with responsibility for curbing the international
      narcotics trade, said the main problems were
      the lack of time to reach farmers in remote
      areas and the fact that the major poppy fields
      were located in the most lawless parts of
      Afghanistan.

      In 1999, the country produced almost
      three-quarters of the world's heroin and 90% of
      the drug sold on the streets of Europe.

      The hardline Taliban regime banned poppy
      cultivation in 2000, but took no action to seize
      existing stockpiles or to disrupt the movement of
      supplies across traditional trafficking routes.

      Although the Taliban took no direct part in the
      trade, it taxed growers and dealers. Osama bin
      Laden's al Qaeda organisation also took a
      percentage of the profits for acting as
      middleman in a distribution network involving
      Chechen mafia routes through Russia to the
      Balkans.

      A kilo of the sticky, greenish-black heroin base
      sells for £500 in the bazaars of Peshawar and
      Quetta in Pakistan.

      Poor farmers in a land where average annual
      income is less than £400 and life expectancy
      peaks at 42 can make 100 times more for an
      acre of poppies than for growing an acre of
      wheat. Three years of drought and three
      decades of war have increased their
      desperation for a means of feeding their
      families.

      Independent warlords have replaced the Taliban
      in raking off a share of the take from the trade, a
      UN official said yesterday. 

      "Persuading them to give up the financial power
      heroin gives them will be a major hurdle in any
      campaign to reconstruct Afghanistan's
      agricultural economy," he said.

Full article at:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/27-2-19102-0-29-45.html

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney at mbs.fi